Partnership
by Luinlothana
Summary: Chloe and Lucifer have a new case that eventually brings them to the point where some revelations are necessary. Set mid-season 3, diverging from the established events from that point.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Any intellectual property attached to the story below belongs to parties other than the humble author of the story in question. Who would gladly transfer even the rights to the remaining few original ideas to the parties currently in possession of the rights to the recognisable elements as a gesture of gratitude for presenting the stories to fans like herself. No profit is being derived from the following work and the purposes for its creation are purely recreational.

Summary: Chloe and Lucifer have a new case that eventually brings them to the point where some revelations are necessary. Set mid-season 3, diverging from the established events from that point.

A/N: When writing, I imagined this story taking place sometime before the events of the 'Infernal Guinea Pig' episode but as there isn't a clear time mark here, you can easily pick the spot on the timeline you think fits it best.

Many thanks to Pendragon2601 for being my beta for this story.

Partnership

Chapter 1

'_New case. Powell Library. See you there.'_

It was entirely possible that had he been anyone else, waking up to a text hinting at some new atrocities being committed in the city would be a grim perspective. Luckily, having observed for millennia the worst humanity had to offer, he never had any delusions regarding atrocities _not_ happening at any given moment, meaning that all the text did was offer the opportunity of seeing Detective Chloe Decker sooner rather than later. A prospect he found delightfully entertaining.

Stopping only briefly to retrieve his car keys, Lucifer exited his apartment and a moment later was already driving towards the place the Detective indicated at a speed she would decidedly not approve of.

He slowed down approaching the UCLA campus, passing the old buildings before finally reaching his destination. He was soon stepping out of his Corvette next to the area cordoned off by the yellow Police tape. Somewhere behind it, Ella's voice was ringing in the morning air.

"-judging by the alignment of the body. While the broken neck would be the immediate cause there are defensive marks on her hands and signs of strangulation. The assailant likely overpowered her."

"Estimated T.O.D.?" Chloe's voice asked, just as Lucifer manoeuvred between the uniformed officers and saw both women standing next to the body

"Probably sometime around eight last night. A more detailed answer will have to wait for the autopsy."

"Still, it wasn't that late. It's a public place, maybe someone saw something."

Lucifer decided that this was his cue.

"Honestly, Detective. It's a library. You need to visit Lux more often if you think _this_ is where people come on a Friday evening."

"Lucifer," the Detective responded with a slight undertone of exasperation that he grew to find rather endearing. "As you can see, unfortunately for her, _she _wasn't in a club last night. So the best we can do is see if we can find any witnesses. I think checking who was in the library around the closing time yesterday might be a good start. Are you coming?"

"Of course. Lead the way," Lucifer replied innocently, adopting a professional look on his face and waving his arm towards her in a gentlemanly gesture to continue.

"Great," she nodded and started walking towards the building. Lucifer fell into step beside her, his attention solely on her as she briefed him on their newest victim. "According to her student ID,our victim's name was Melissa Brown. She was studying political sciences. She still had her wallet on her so it doesn't seem to be a robbery gone wrong. And nobody seems to have tampered with her clothes so sexual assault seems unlikely too. If someone was planning this, I would guess they would have picked a more discreet location, so the best working idea we have so far is a confrontation or meeting gone wrong."

"It is possible, though as I keep telling you, Detective, a library on a Friday evening could hardly be called a crowded spot."

"Well, we'll just have to see that, won't we?" she replied with a raised eyebrow as she opened the door and headed for the librarian's desk. She flashed her badge. "LAPD. I'd like the list of people in the library last evening."

The middle-aged woman behind the desk paused, looking at them. Unconsciously, she readjusted the clip holding her hair, even if it did little to hide the already visible roots. "I'm not sure I can give you such information without a warrant."

The Detective was just opening her mouth to say something, when Lucifer leaned in close with a salacious smile, glancing at the woman's ID badge before looking her in the eye.

"I'm sure you can help us here, Amy. After all, what kind of privileged information is it, that someone uses a library? I'm sure you would like to give us a hand."

"I..." the woman hesitated.

"While you are doing your job excellently, surely you understand that you need to bend the rules a bit from time to time. After all, it's the only way you can reach what you want in life. Because I'm sure you desire more than this, don't you?"

"I— Yes... I do. I want to break with the routine I've been living in. Take risky choices without worrying about the consequences, instead of always being the responsible one. Have some adventure that would tear me away from all this."

"Well, now is your chance to start. If you help us, it would be the first step towards your adventure." Lucifer's smile grew and the woman returned it shyly.

III

Five minutes later they were exiting the library, with Chloe firmly grasping the printed list of library patrons from the previous evening. She glanced at her partner.

"You know, I'm not sure if I should scold you or thank you for what you did there."

"You got the list you wanted, didn't you?"

"You left that poor woman completely dazzled."

"Her boring life was just confronted with the excitement that is a police investigation. I can hardly take credit for her deciding she wanted to be a part of that." Lucifer replied innocently, though Chloe suspected, not for the first time, that there wasn't anything innocent about what Lucifer did at all.

Chloe rolled her eyes before studying the list.

"The library closes at seven. _Amy_ told us they tell people they are closing but they let them finish what they are doing, so it's likely that those who exited last were here at approximately the time this happened. I'll have those called into the station today. In the meantime we could try to find out what she was doing here."

As they were talking they walked outside and down the library steps back to the crime scene, where she bent down to the girl's backpack that was already photographed, but not yet collected by the crime scene unit. She reached into it to find out what, other than the victim's wallet, the girl had with her when the murder took place.

"Let's see, some books - _Structure of Scientific Revolutions_ and _Political Ideologies: Their Origins and Impact_, an iPod, lip-gloss, box of tampons, packet of tissues. Nothing particularly telling aside from her apparently not liking any light reading."

"She carried an iPod _separately_?" Lucifer asked incredulously. Chloe supposed she should be grateful he chose to focus on that instead of the tampons. "I thought everyone has their playlist on their phone these days."

"You know, that's actually a good point. There isn't a phone in here," she turned to the unit surveying the scene. "Has anyone seen a cell phone? It seems to be missing from her backpack."

A shout brought their attention to a young uniformed officer standing near a bush under which a phone was lying. It was barely a few steps from where the victim was lying and likely would have been found sooner if it wasn't for a branch obscuring it.

"Really? That must be _the_ cheapest model on the market. I have doubts if it even has a colour display. What would a person her age be doing with something like this?" Lucifer mused, as they peered closely at the device. Curiously enough, despite looking rather shabbily, the device was still in one piece.

"In case you haven't noticed by now, not everyone has money to throw around. And it's a phone, it's just supposed to make calls."

"And give an indication of a social status, especially in circles such as university students."

"As you pointed out, Lucifer, it was a Friday night and she was in a library. I think it's safe to say she had other priorities than maintaining her social status," Chloe turned to the officer. "Make sure someone snaps a photo of the location then bag it and add it to the evidence. Good job spotting it."

Chloe straightened and started walking back to the main scene, talking in equal parts to Lucifer and to herself. "We will need to get contacts from the phone and then we can try contacting the next of kin. I suppose this is as much as we can gather from the scene for now. We can head back to the station to start on the interviews."

"I'll be right behind you, Detective."

III

Of course it turned out that by being _right behind her_ Lucifer meant arriving twenty minutes after she did, carrying takeaway coffee. She couldn't help but suspect he was trying to make sure he wouldn't be roped into some mundane clerical task whilst she called in the potential witnesses. As if she would risk _that_ after having seen his filing system.

"I thought that you've been working since early this morning, you could use some coffee to brighten your day, Detective," he informed her with a disarming smile, not even attempting to address his late arrival.

"Of course you did," she rolled her eyes but gratefully took the coffee, realising she could really use it.

"How goes calling the witnesses?"

"About as well as you'd expect. Half of them didn't even pick up. But while you were gone I managed to find Melissa's address, so I thought we could go and see what we can learn in her apartment. I've put Dan in charge of collectingthe witness statements."

"That_ is_ an excellent idea. Shall we go now?"

"I don't see why not."

It wasn't long before they were driving towards Melissa's apartment in his Corvette, which he had somehow managed to convince her that it would be the best choice since she was still finishing her coffee. She couldn't help but wonder if he hadn't planned it that way.

The building they parked in front of had obviously seen better days, likely sometime when the bell-bottoms were still the height of mainstream fashion. Still it was close to the campus, which undoubtedly held a lot of appeal for potential student tenants.

They were just exiting the car when her phone rang.

"Hey Dan, what is it?" Chloe looked at the time as she greeted her ex-husband. It was already early afternoon.

"Just wanted to let you know that one of the witnesses came in as soon as he got our call. Said that he saw the vic arguing with some man in the street and he thought it was about some comic books."

She frowned. "Comic books?"

"That's what he said. He said he didn't think of it much at the time but he definitely heard the word 'comic'. So if you see any in the apartment, they might have something to do with the motive."

"I'll keep that in mind. Thanks, Dan," she finished the conversation quickly before summarising it to Lucifer as they were walking into the building.

Just before she knocked on the door she frowned.

"You know, I keep thinking it's a bit strange. I mean, my mother took me to a couple conventions while she was promoting her movies. I just can't picture the people there using the words 'comic books' while they were arguing about them. Graphic novels, perhaps, in general. When it comes to specifics, issues, series or characters, sure. Books as a general reference is an option, I suppose. But if someone felt strongly enough to argue or hurt someone, I just can't imagine them using that term."

"Perhaps we should simply see if we find any in her apartment," Lucifer knocked on the door in her stead and a moment later, it was opened by a short, bespectacled young woman in shorts and oversized T-shirt. "Well, hello there!"

He grinned at the girl and Chloe was brought back from her thoughts by realising where this was going. She reached for her badge, while sending her partner a warning look.

"Good morning, ma'am. I'm Detective Decker, LAPD. Is this the residence of Melissa Brown?"

The girl blinked, looking at the badge. "Yeah, she's my roommate. I'm Jenny Colbert. Is Melissa in some kind of trouble?"

"May we come in? I'm afraid we have some news."

The girl gestured for them to come in and Chloe directed her to the couch, were they both sat.

The apartment was a small one with every available bit of space used to maximum. It seemed rather tidy but that might have been from the lack of space to actually allow any spectacular disorder.

"This morning the body of a woman was found near the library. The ID she had with her pointed to your roommate," she took out the photo of the girl. "Could you confirm whether it is her or not?"

The sob that Jenny let out after looking at the picture left little doubt as to her ability to confirm the identity of the girl in the photo.

"Do you know if she had some family here in the city? Someone we could contact?"

"Not really. We both came here to study. We've been friends since high school. You know, two small town girls making their way in a big city. Her parents and brother are still back home."

"In that case, before we can get them to come, would you be willing to come to the precinct to confirm her identity?"

"Sure," Jenny said in a small voice.

"Can you think of anyone who would possibly harm Melissa? Or anything that she seemed worried about lately?"

"Not really." the girl blinked. "Wait, are you saying this wasn't some accident? That someone actually—"

"Standard procedure, I'm afraid. Can you think of anyone Melissa was arguing with for any reason?"

The girl shook her head. "No more than usual. She had this thing about saving the world, you know. She was always signing Greenpeace petitions, writing letters for Amnesty International, handing out leaflets about social injustice, that kind of thing. But lots of people do things right that, right?"

"True. But we need to check all the possibilities. Would you mind if we looked around? To get some idea about what she might have been doing?"

"Sure, if you like. Her room might be a bit of a mess, though," she nodded, standing up to lead Chloe to Melissa's room. "She never had time to tidy up, always busy with something."

"Did she have any interests? Any hobbies?" they reached the room to see Lucifer already standing there, looking at the place critically. Chloe concluded that he must have sauntered there as she was speaking with Jenny. Whether it was because he got bored, or to avoid exposing them to his temper as he heard about the virtues of the girl whose life ended so tragically could be anyone's guess.

"I'd say that would be a no, when it comes to comic books, Detective," he informed her, as soon as they stepped in.

"Comic books?" Jenny seemed surprised. "They weren't really her thing. I mean, I think she has this biographical one about a girl growing up in Iran after the revolution but I wouldn't even know where she kept it."

"Right, that doesn't sound like it could be what we're looking for. Did she have a boyfriend?"

"She never said anything about—"

"Really, Detective," Lucifer drawled as he opened the girl's closet. His hand started to rifle through several hangers of t-shirts and sweatshirts, every single one of them devoid of any colour or pattern except for the odd environmental slogan. "I would say that we can have a definite 'no' on that. Have you looked at her style? I'd say if there was someone she wanted to attract she would have at least _one_ thing more alluring than those shirts—"

He paused and Chloe wondered what it was that peaked his interest.

"It seems like Detective Douche managed to do it again. And that your instincts were right," he took a few t-shirts out of the closet and placed them on the bed. "It seems 'comic' is not what we should be thinking about. 'Commie' on the other hand seems more plausible at this point.

Chloe stared at the shirts depicting a red star, Che Guevara and, if she wasn't much mistaken, Karl Marx with '_Nothing to lose but chains'_ quote over the picture. Still...

"Come on, 'commie'? Who'd even say that outside a cold war movie these days?" Chloe scoffed as she picked up one of the t-shirts. A strange version of Uncle Sam with the hammer and sickle symbol on his hat was staring at her from the faded shirt. Below she could see the slogan '_I want YOU to fight social injustice_'.

"Now, that _is_ a good question, Detective. Though I suppose there might be a few people out there who still remember the cold war along with the vernacular it came with." Lucifer shook his head and dropped one of the t-shirts in his hands onto Melissa's bed.

As farfetched as it sounded, Chloe had to agree her partner might be onto something. Still, that didn't mean they shouldn't look further and explore other possibilities. She turned to Jenny, who was still standing in the doorway.

"You mentioned Melissa was handing out leaflets of some sort. Do you have a copy of those?"

The girl nodded. "I think so. There should be more in her desk. At least the recent ones are, anyway."

"Excellent. We'll need to take those too. And if she was doing any research on her laptop we will need it for a while as well."

"Sure."

"Incidentally," she heard Lucifer joining the conversation again, "since we're on the topic of electronic devices. Did your friend always have such poor taste in mobile phones? I believe the one she had with her hardly even deserves the name anymore."

"Oh, yeah that," Jenny pulled out a desk drawer and took out a smartphone that looked like it was crushed into pieces. "Her old one got broken about two weeks ago so she bought some replacement."

"Did she tell you what happened to it?" Chloe asked, looking at the item.

"Not really. She just got home one day and it was like that. She was kind of angry about it, because we really didn't have that much money to spare but I assumed she must have dropped it."

"Still, I'd like to take it as well. It's possible that there is something on it that could give us some clue."

"Whatever you think is necessary," Jenny nodded, her eyes visibly swollen. "Just as long as it helps you find out why someone would do something like this to her."

III

Almost as soon as Lucifer and Chloe arrived back at the precinct, Ella was striding straight towards them brandishing a thick manila of assorted papers. She seemed to be slightly more erratic than her usual kooky self today judging from the quick babble of speech coming from her as she promptly stopped in their path.

"I have to warn you guys, this is really awfully sad. She actually managed to put in '911'. I mean, one press of a call button away from getting help. That's like, epically tragic. Still, the good news is, whoever took her phone and threw it away wasn't wearing any gloves and we found a partial fingerprint that was definitely not Melissa's."

"Did you match it with anyone?" Chloe immediately passing the bag she was holding to Lucifer and taking a closer look at Ella's file.

"Not yet, but I put it into the system. Hopefully, it shouldn't take too long to get a match," Ella replied with a cheery grin.

"In the meantime, we managed to get her laptop and previous phone. There might me some useful info there."

"I'll get them to the techs right away."

Lucifer handed the bagged items to Ella, frowning at them for a moment.

"It would probably be best if they started with the phone. The state it's currently in might suggest whatever happened to it was done in anger. If the girl really couldn't afford a new one, she wouldn't be this careless with it."

"Not to mention that the phone's memory is smaller, ergo we'll get the first results faster. Got it, dude."

"Excellent, Miss Lopez."

"In the meantime," Chloe said closing the file, "we can take a look at the internet forums to see if there are any for those still living in the reality of the cold war."

"Now, Detective, does that mean you actually like my theory?" Lucifer grinned at her.

"Like I said. Checking things from all the angles. You don't have to be smug about it," Chloe said as she crossed her arms in front of her chest. She could feel Lucifer's eyes watching her expectantly, waiting for the tell-tale sign that he'd succeeded in getting a reaction out of her. _It's like working with a child _she thought amusedly before casting a sideways look at her partner. "But just so you know, it wasn't a bad idea. Wanna come help me?"

"I thought you'd never ask." Lucifer replied with a smirk.

III

"What complete rubbish," Lucifer commented, staring at the computer screen on Chloe's desk, currently displaying what was purporting to be the documentation of secret soviet cells operating in the US. "I mean, if you are _trying_ to make up something convincing, at least get your grammar right. Parts of this read more like beginner's phrase book than an actual document. Who are they trying to fool with this?"

"A lot of people, judging by the response," Chloe sighed as she looked closer at the photo. "You can seriously read it?"

"Of course. The picture might not be the best quality, which I'm assuming is on purpose, but it's quite legible."

"No, I mean Russian."

"Of course I can, Detective. Ever since the print was invented, knowing the alphabet that came with a language became rather essential."

"Not exactly what I was asking," Lucifer heard her mutter, before she cleared her throat. "In any case, if those were fabricated, we can probably assume that whoever posted those doesn't believe in the whole thing. But those reading it might take it more seriously. We need to check if any of the IP addresses were assigned to people in the LA area. We might find something that way. There is—"

The Detective never got to finish as in that moment Miss Lopez practically _ran _to her desk.

"Oh my God, you guys! You have to see it. I just sent you a video attachment recovered from the phone. I mean, if that couldn't be a motive, I don't know what could."

"Thanks, Ella. Just give me a second," the detective replied, opening her mail. Lucifer stood up and peered over Chloe's shoulder much to the annoyance of his partner. A short moment later a shaky video started playing on the screen.

It looked like a large group of people, camping on the floor in some sort of warehouse. In the poor quality of the recording Lucifer could just barely catch some conversations in Dinka, Oromo and – oh yes, that seemed to be Honduran Spanish. The rather mundane topics and mentions of work seemed to point to the people being in this situation on their own volition, as if the place was something of a makeshift shelter.

"I don't know what exactly is going on here-" the forensic scientists started, before Lucifer interrupted her.

"Immigrants. Most likely illegal immigrants. Hear that, Miss Lopez?" he pointed out when Spanish was audible again.

She almost plastered her ear to the speaker but then she nodded.

"Yeah, you might be onto something here. But the part I wanted to show you comes around the five minute mark."

They watched for a while longer when suddenly someone was shouting from behind the camera.

'_Hey! What are you doing here? This is a private property! You are trespassing.'_

When a male voice sounded in the background, the image on the screen started moving quickly, as if whoever was filming was trying to get away.

'_What are you doing? Are you recording this?'_

'_It's nothing, I just made a bet with my friend-'_

'_Give that to me!'_

'_No!'_

The image was now very shaky and moving fast, clearly indicating that someone was running. Then the movement stopped, the image suggesting the person trying to escape was cornered in some corridor.

'_I said give that to me, and then you can go.'_

'_No!'_

'_Just hand it over and nobody gets hurt.'_

There was no answer but the camera started shaking, indicating some struggle before becoming stationary. The final angle suggesting it had fallen towards the floor. A moment later the image cut off.

"Now that's some clue, right?" Miss Lopez stated as the Detective closed the window the video was playing in.

"I think whatever Melissa got herself into, she was clearly over her head," she stated sadly.

"I'd say it's too bad she didn't geotag the video as she was shooting it," Lucifer stated, and saw Miss Lopez staring at him wide-eyed.

"I- I'll be right back!" she stated and retreated to her lab.

TBC

Reviews will be very appreciated


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Any intellectual property attached to the story below belongs to parties other than the humble author of the story in question. Who would gladly transfer even the rights to the remaining few original ideas to the parties currently in possession of the rights to the recognisable elements as a gesture of gratitude for presenting the stories to fans like herself. No profit is being derived from the following work and the purposes for its creation are purely recreational.

Many thanks to Pendragon2601 for being my beta for this story.

Partnership

Chapter 2

"Get this," Ella pointed excitedly to her laptop. "The video was shot somewhere in this part of the pier and it _just_ so happens to be that it's where the warehouses of one of the companies she listed on her leaflets are."

"Which ones would that be?" Chloe asked only to look up and see her partner already reading one of those.

"Ah, yes, the list of California companies suspected of breeching human rights. Here it is - NowiChem something or another, My, does the list go on. I don't know what the girl was trying to achieve but this is not so much alarming as it is unreadable."

"Still, it speaks to reason, that she might have wanted to get some proof."

Lucifer slowly placed the paper back on Ella's desk, still looking at it critically.

"Hence the trespassing and the unfortunate finish of the video, I see where you are going with that, Detective."

"Well, it might not solve our case just yet. But hopefully it will be enough to get a warrant. Dan could take a team to search the place while we go to meet with the company's boss. That way we won't push him into any action and he won't get a warning we're coming."

"Sounds like a plan," he agreed with a small nod.

III

"Just be careful. NowiChem is a chemicals producer. Technically, that should mostly mean paints and lacquers but there is no knowing if they weren't working on something less- mundane in the evenings, for that extra cash," Chloe instructed her ex-husband over the phone as she was walking to the designated spot in the precinct's parking lot where she was supposed to meet with Lucifer.

There was an unmistakeable sigh of frustration on the other side of the line.

"Don't worry Chloe, I've got this. This is not my first day on the job, you know."

"I guess I'm not that keen on the idea of explaining to Trixie why her week with Dad got cancelled because he landed himself in a hospital."

"Which is why they teach us all those rules and safety protocols at the academy. You probably wondered all this time why they were bothering."

"Well, you have to admit, some of those simply aren't practical."

"You sound like you're spending too much time with Lucifer."

"No way," she grinned. "I'm sure he secretly has the whole book on procedures memorised. How else could he accidentally break every rule there is?"

"You know what, I wouldn't be surprised. Which makes me ever so grateful that I'll be going with the backup of the _actual_ cops while you are stuck with him."

"He's been getting better at this partnership thing, you know."

"I'm sure he has."

"Just remember to try asking to look around without showing the warrant first. Whoever is looking over those warehouses might be more eager to talk if they let you in voluntarily."

"Remember what I said about this not being the first day on the job?"

III

As they exited the elevator on the floor housing the offices of NowiChem International, Chloe could feel that somebody was watching them. The culprit became rather apparent when she saw the woman sitting at the desk in front of Steven Nowicki's office; the secretary was clearly undressing Lucifer with her eyes.

It took a considerable effort not to make a teasing comment to her partner but at the same time an idea appeared in her head.

"Lucifer," she asked quietly, as to not tip the woman onto anything. "You know how it's said that an assistant usually knows more about her boss than his wife does?"

"I can't say I've spent too much time considering the matter, Detective."

"Well, I've been thinking..." she stopped the line of thought as they approached the desk and she addressed the secretary "I'm Detective Decker, LAPD. I need to talk with Mr Nowicki."

"I'm afraid Mr Nowicki is very busy at the moment. I—"

"It will only take a few minutes," she turned to her partner then. "Lucifer, I need to ask him a couple of questions. Could you wait here for me? I'm sure Ms...?"

"Graham," she woman supplied eagerly.

"Ms. Graham can keep you company for a bit."

Lucifer gave her a long look that seemed to be in equal parts amusement and accusation. She grinned at him in response.

"Mr Nowicki will see you now, Detective Decker," she heard Ms Graham inform her with a strange eagerness that she could only assume had to do with wanting Lucifer to herself.

"Thank you."

III

The office was as impersonal as it could get, with a gaudy abstract painting on one of the walls. One could probably achieve similar artistic effect by accidentally dropping a few cans of paint, all of them in flashy colours. The only thing the piece could possibly depict was an accident on the production floor.

Steven Nowicki turned out to be a middle aged, thin man wearing a dark suit that while not very well tailored had probably been expensive once, but now looked too worn out to impress. Or was it simply that being used to Lucifer's standards she was prone to judge that more harshly?

"Good Morning, Mr Nowicki. I'm Detective Chloe Decker from the LAPD. I was wondering if I could ask you a couple of questions."

"Naturally, Detective," the man gave her a cold, professional smile, that she could just imagine him using while negotiating business deals. "Please, sit down. How may I help you?"

It was almost funny how the tone of the sentence suggested the only thing he would be willing to help her with would be leaving his office as soon as possible.

"Mr Nowicki, I'd like to ask you about a video shot at a property your company was leasing."

"A video? We generally have a policy of not using recording devices on our premises to preserve business secrecy but I suppose if one of our employees did not comply with it, I can only be grateful they reached out to the police, not our competition." Butter wouldn't melt in the man's mouth and Chloe was starting to regret leaving her partner outside.

"In this case, I am actually referring to a warehouse near the pier where-"

"Oh, you don't mean the squatter problem, do you?"

"And was there a squatter problem? No such report was on the files."

"There wasn't a point, really. The building wasn't currently being used. A security guard from an external company I hire reported there were squatters living there. I asked the company to send a few of their men to search the place more carefully, but when they got there was no sign of anybody there anymore," Chloe suddenly had a strange feeling that Dan wasn't going to find anything in the warehouse.

"Mr Nowicki, we have a video of your security guard assaulting a girl who was filming the people living in the building."

"Oh? I'm sorry to hear that. I hope she is all right." The concern in the man's voice was so fake she was doing her best not to snap at him. "Did she file a complaint then? I'm afraid you'll need to take it up with the security company. My secretary will be able to provide you with their contact details."

"The video also shows a large number of people living in extremely unsanitary conditions in a building leased by your company."

"I'm afraid I wouldn't know anything about it. I can hardly be responsible for what the squatters did. Now, I'm afraid, it's almost time for my next meeting." He looked at his watch. "If you have any further questions, please direct them to our legal office."

The man stood up, giving her a clear sign the conversation was over. She thought for a moment about pressing the issue but if the man was lawyering up, there wasn't much she could do.

"Thank you for your help, Mr Nowicki," she faked a smile as well. "I hope your security company will be able to provide us with some details."

"I'm sure. Good day, Detective Decker," he responded in a smile that was even more artificial than her own.

She shook the man's hand and exited the office, fuming. Outside, she saw Lucifer, leaning over Ms Graham's desk, laughing with her.

"Oh, Detective, done so soon? Annie and I were just discussing how great the hiking trails are in the LA area."

"I just bet you were," she murmured. Before closing her eyes to remind herself that he was doing exactly what she asked him to do. More or less. "Ms Graham, I've been told you could give us the contact to your company's security firm?"

The secretary regretfully looked away from Lucifer and focused on the computer screen. Within a few taps of a keyboard she had printed out the details.

"Is there _anything_ else I can help you with?" the woman asked breathily. Chloe had a feeling it had nothing to do with her willingness to cooperate with the LAPD.

"No, thank you, that will be all for now. We'll call you if we need anything else," the detective looked to her partner. "Ready to head back?"

"Of course, Detective. I was only waiting for you." Judging from a soft moan of the woman behind the desk at the words that weren't even directed at her, Lucifer hadn't quite turned his mojo off.

Chloe rolled her eyes.

"Alright then, let's go. Thank you for your help, Ms Graham," she turned and marched away, waiting until the elevator doors closed behind them to groan in frustration. She looked at her partner. "_Please_ tell me that at least _you_ found something out and coming here wasn't a complete waste of time."

"Well, now that you mention it, we _did_ have a rather lovely chat with Miss Graham-"

"About the hiking trails, if I recall."

"And the magnificent views that come with them, that enticed her employer to buy a rather large house outside LA just before the company ran into some financial problems. It seems he had trouble finishing the house and had to give up the fashionable construction company, going instead for the services of some cheap local builders. And even with that it appeared that the company reserves have gotten surprisingly low at that point in time, as if someone was siphoning money out for their personal purposes. Now, I'm not pointing any fingers-"

Chloe stared.

"How on earth did you manage to get all this in such a short time?"

He grinned at her. "I asked nicely."

"You- never mind. I don't think I want to know," Chloe forced herself to shift her thoughts from her smiling partner to the information he provided. "It would make sense that if he took money from the company's reserves, they could start having solvency problems."

"Meaning he needed to start looking into ways of cutting costs if he wanted to keep the company afloat," her partner supplied, following her reasoning.

"Not to mention keep what he did from any auditors if they were forced to file for bankruptcy. I can see how that could lead to looking for cheap workforce to work a second shift with minimal pay and no benefits."

Lucifer nodded. "Bringing in illegal immigrants would definitely help him in obtaining such goal."

"Still, that doesn't tie him directly to our case. I mean, he could get into a lot of trouble with USCIS, and I'm sure there would be enough to build a case against him for the conditions those people were living in, but if anything, piling a murder on top of that only brought our attention to him. We _know_ the altercation recorded in the video ended with Melissa coming back home or we would never have the video in the first place."

"Would you like to go back so we could talk to him together?"

Chloe grimaced. "He made it pretty clear he would only talk to us through the lawyers from this point on. I'll ask Charlotte if she can do something about it. For now it's probably best if we go back to the precinct and regroup."

They exited the building and started walking toward the car.

"Do you really think Detective Dou- _Dan_ had better luck?"

"Nowicki sounded pretty confident about the building being empty now. Still, we can follow the lead to the security company and see if there wasn't anything on Melissa's laptop suggesting she rubbed someone else the wrong way."

III

As could be expected, Dan returned to the station, sometime after they did, empty-handed.

"It's like the place was wiped clean," he complained loudly. "The best we could find were some empty food cans and the old smell of bodily fluids."

"Which could just as easily support the version about squatters," Chloe nodded. "At least we have the video. Did you confirm it was the same place?"

"It seemed to be, as much as any warehouse is distinctive."

"Then we might look into other properties of the company."

"Not that we'll have sufficient proof to issue a new warrant."

Chloe sighed. "I called the security company. They grumbled a bit but they will tell the men assigned to the warehouse to come in tomorrow morning for questioning."

"Did it have to be Sunday _morning_?"

"Hey, I promised Trixie we'll go to the beach in the afternoon and you have her next week. This way, I can simply let her sleep in with Olga watching over her, and then we'll have the day to ourselves."

III

The interrogation room was hot and stuffy despite the air conditioning.

"—What I really want is for the things to be the way they were in high school. Life was great then. Easy. I was popular, a member of the football team, had pretty girls willing to have some fun. Now I can hardly afford the rent and being good at sports only barely got me a security job."

"And weren't you tempted to do anything on the side, hmm? Just to supplement your meagre income a little bit?" Lucifer never broke the eye contact with the man.

"No way! I wouldn't do anything that could cost me the job. My fiancée can't find work since she had the twins."

Chloe bit her lip. The interviews, even with all Lucifer's persuasive powers seemed to be taking forever and looking more and more like a waste of time. She cleared her throat.

"So, you are saying you were willing to do anything it took so long as you keep the job?" she asked speculatively.

The man shook his head. "Look, I just didn't want any trouble, I was simply doing my job."

"Weren't you tempted to push the limits just a little bit, to show what a good employee you were, perhaps even earn a raise?" Her partner's voice was smooth as silk.

"I- I didn't do anything wrong. She was not supposed to be there. I just wanted to scare her a bit and erase the recording."

_Now_ they were finally getting somewhere.

"So that resulted in terrorising a girl, who was very likely recording a crime taking place?"

"She was trespassing! And there wasn't really a crime there. There were those people there, but the boss said to just let them be. I figured they might have paid him under the table or something to be able to stay. The place was empty anyway and I didn't want to ask any questions."

"Even when Melissa started looking around?"

"I didn't want to lose my job! And I only saw her once, I didn't even know what her name was until you told me."

"Still, you attacked her," Chloe stated bluntly.

"I was just trying to take her phone. When she dropped it and it was broken so she couldn't use it, I escorted her to the door. I even have that on video! There is a camera over the main entrance. I showed it to my boss when I reported what happened."

"If there is a video feed of the door, how could you not notice her entering in the first place?"

"There is another door to the warehouse and the cam there has always been broken. I reported that to the boss but he said it wasn't our property so he can't do anything about it."

"Right. I think that will be all for now," Chloe stood up and exited the room with her partner following a step behind. She went to her desk quickly and started typing. "We need to get that footage from the security company."

"He wasn't lying, Detective, I assure you."

"I know. Thank you for that, by the way. If it wasn't for you, I'd still be stuck in the examination room when Trixie is waiting for me," she smiled at Lucifer before turning back to the screen. "I just need to check if it was possible to ID Melissa based on that footage. If so, we had someone who knew what she looked like and likely understood enough about how digital devices work to know she had some incriminating evidence against them."

In a few taps of the keyboard Chloe dispatched the e-mail. Then, noticing she received an e-mail with the documents recovered from the victim's computer, she quickly looked through the files and sent the correspondence part to the printer. A moment later, she collected the papers into a cardboard folder and put on her jacket.

Trixie was waiting.

III

"Can we have some ice-cream?" Trixie's voice pulled Chloe away from the thoughts of the file she was currently carrying in her bag.

"You already had one, Monkey. You don't want to spoil your appetite before dinner. Maybe we can just pick a nice spot to sit for a while?"

"But then you'll just start reading about the work stuff," Trixie wrinkled her nose. "I saw it in your bag, you know."

Really, what did she expect from a child of two detectives?

"No, I won't," Chloe felt ashamed, being confronted like that by her daughter, when a moment ago she was fingering the folder, hoping for an opportunity to look at it. "I just wanted to have it with me, in case I thought of something while we were here. We are working to catch someone who did something very bad."

"And will you catch him?"

"Of course, Monkey. We always do."

"Then I suppose it's alright if you have it with you," Trixie decided after a moment of thought. "But can we spend some time without you worrying about it?"

Chloe's heart just about broke when she saw her daughter's hopeful look. However, before she had any time to respond, she heard a _very _familiar voice behind them.

"I'm sure that is exactly what your mother intends to do, Beatrice."

She slowly turned around and sure enough, Lucifer was there, standing out as the only person who would ever think a three-piece suit was a good choice for the beach. Trixie was the first to react. With a shout of "Lucifer!" she launched herself at him, attaching herself to his legs in an enthusiastic hug.

"Yes, hello, urchin. A little help here, Detective?" he looked at her pleadingly, forcing her to laugh.

"What are you even doing here?"

"You mentioned you wanted to have fun on the beach with your offspring. After I saw you taking that file home with you, I had some concerns that you might have forgotten what fun _is_, so I decided to intervene," he explained, stiffly patting Trixie on her head and attempting to free himself from her grasp.

"I'm not sure any definition of fun you subscribe to is appropriate for minors. And how did you even find us?"

"You _did_ mention this was your favourite spot," he said as if it was obvious, while Chloe searched her memory, finally arriving at the conclusion that she might have mentioned it _a few months ago,_ _once_. "Besides, you wound me. I _can_ behave you know. In fact, since you were worried about spoiling your offspring's appetite, would you allow me to invite you to the restaurant over there? You can have your dinner and then, I heard they are serving a simply marvellous chocolate cake for dessert."

It took one look at Trixie's face to tell her she wasn't going to win this battle, so Chloe had to settle for the next best thing.

"Well, if you insist, I hope you'll stick around until we get home so we can look through the file together and talk the case for a bit."

He grinned in response.

III

If she was being honest with herself, Chloe had to admit, she had surprising amount of fun and hardly noticed the passing time while they were on the beach. Of course, Lucifer indulging Trixie, buying _everything_ she asked for was probably something she should be mad about, it definitely wasn't recommended in any parenting manuals, but seeing her partner, who was normally clueless around children, sharing conspiratorial looks with her daughter just as _yet another_ cotton candy appeared in her hand seemingly out of nowhere, was just so adorable she couldn't bring herself to put her foot down.

The end result was, of course, now that they finally reached her home and she was hoping to do some work, she had a daughter on a sugar high to deal with.

"I hope you realise, it's all your fault," she informed her partner over Trixie's excited chatter, as she was eagerly listing her school friends who were going to be jealous of the rainbow braid in her hair (paid for by Lucifer, of course).

"You wouldn't believe the number of times I heard _that_, Detective. And rarely about things this innocuous," he responded with a slightly amused tone of someone enjoying a private joke.

"Right. You _do_ realise I was hoping you'd help me go through the victim's e-mails?"

"Even more the reason to let the child take over. She clearly has much more interesting ideas about spending the evening."

She rolled her eyes. Seriously?

"Hey, Monkey, how about we put on a movie now so we can watch, while Lucifer and I go through some work stuff?"

Trixie was visibly disappointed at the turn of events but she didn't have time to express it further when Lucifer addressed her.

"I'm sure your father will be willing to go with you tomorrow to buy that sequinned dinosaur T-shirt you desire so much. It would be too late to go shopping today in any case," her partner spoke smoothly, not even trying to hide passing Trixie a bill decidedly too large a denomination to be responsibly handled by a pre-teen. Chloe opened her mouth to say something, when another thought hit her – was he willingly _listening_ to Trixie's entire stream of consciousness?

"Thanks, Lucifer!" her daughter grinned delightedly as she pocketed the bill, before settling in front of the TV and grabbing the remote. "Do you like 'Treasure Planet'? We could watch that."

Chloe couldn't help but notice Trixie directed the question only at Lucifer.

"I suppose I don't have anything against it. Would you like me to order some pizza in case you get hungry while watching?"

At this point Chloe made another attempt at restoring some parenting sanity.

"Honestly, Lucifer, she ate out for most of the day. I'll just make her some light snacks. We had a large dinner. Even if she says she'll eat it, she won't," she tried to explain, though the end of it was drowned out by Trixie's enthusiastic shout.

"Sure!"

"Now, Detective, we can't very well have your child starving, can we?" he asked her reprovingly, reaching for his phone. "Besides, you should be glad. It's nothing sugary after all, which I believe you voiced some objections over before. Just give me a second to order and we can get to that file of yours. Do you have any preferences?"

She groaned at his smile and pointedly opened the folder.

"I'll take that as a no, then."

III

Three hours later Chloe couldn't say the evening was particularly constructive. The victim's e-mails, that she was so hopeful about, turned out to be mostly about the girl's classes and her keeping in touch with the family. Definitely no attempts at blackmail or letting anyone know she had damning evidence of any sort. There weren't even any general threats that could be extrapolated from.

In the end, when she asked Lucifer to help her move Trixie to her bedroom after she fell asleep in the middle of the movie, after eating all of _one_ slice of pizza, Chloe was forced to conclude there was not much point in going back to the file. She shared the thought with her partner who nodded and proceeded to help her tidy the table before wishing her a good night and leaving.

She turned the TV off and ventured to the kitchen area, rolling her eyes slightly at the unfinished pizza. She took one slice, deciding to leave the rest for tomorrow. With Trixie staying with Dan, leftover dinner sounded like a reasonable option.

TBC

Reviews will be appreciated.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Any intellectual property attached to the story below belongs to parties other than the humble author of the story in question. Who would gladly transfer even the rights to the remaining few original ideas to the parties currently in possession of the rights to the recognisable elements as a gesture of gratitude for presenting the stories to fans like herself. No profit is being derived from the following work and the purposes for its creation are purely recreational.

Many thanks to my betas Pendragon2601 and silver-doe287 for helping me with this story.

Partnership

Chapter 3

The morning didn't start well. Not only did they get up too late with Trixie barely making it to school on time, as soon as Chloe turned the work computer on, a message was waiting for her, informing her that the security footage would not be available for some time due to unspecified technical difficulties experienced by the company.

She wrote back asking the company to speed up the process due to the video being needed to confirm the story of their employee. After she was finished, she went to look at the word files from the victim's computer. They generally turned out to be university papers with 'The right of self-determination of the nations _in statu nascendi_ in view of the effort to preserve world order' being the _most_ riveting title of the lot.

Which was why Chloe was eternally grateful to her partner when he arrived, fashionably late as usual, bearing a gift in the form of a takeaway coffee.

"Thanks," she said gratefully, taking a sip. "You have no idea how much I needed this today."

"I rather suspected you might like it, this being a Monday morning after all."

"This goes way beyond the Monday morning, trust me. I just feel like we have nothing to go on with this case," she confessed with a sigh, slumping back in her chair as she warmed her hands around her cup.

"You might want to wait another minute before falling into despair," Lucifer advised with some amusement, looking behind her a moment before Ella reached them. "Good morning, Miss Lopez. I hope that Monday is treating you well."

"Hey guys!" Ella grinned at them. "I just thought I would drop by to let you know I had the IP addresses from those forums checked out and only four active users are from the general LA area."

"I guess that's not too bad," Chloe agreed, slowly feeling better, either because of the coffee or from seeing the case progressing. "Do you have the addresses they were assigned to?"

"You don't even need to ask. To make things better, I checked out the people living there. Aaaand one is a sixteen-year-old living with his grandmother, who, luckily enough, had a fingerprint reading system in his school cafeteria and another had a record after starting a bar fight, so I could rule both out based on the partial print I found."

"Which still leaves us with two."

"Oh, come on guys. Don't you want to get out of here for a bit? I couldn't simply leave you with no fun," Ella replied with a roll of her eyes and a cheeky smile.

"Thanks Ella, you did great with that. What do we know about those two?"

"Well, one is Juan Martinez, twenty to be working part-time as a bartender. Lives in Los Feliz. The other is John Morris, sixty-year-old construction worker, living on the outskirts of town, bordering the desert." The perky girl handed Chloe a sheet of paper with the information along with the addresses.

"Great. I suppose we can do some actual work then." Chloe smiled, showing Lucifer the paper while gathering her jacket from the back of her seat. "It might be a good idea to start with Martinez. It's a shorter drive in any case."

"Really, Detective, if he _does_ work as a bartender, any club owner will tell you that Friday night is _the_ time to call in the part-timers. All hands on deck and such," Lucifer informed her as they were getting into her car.

Chloe looked at him for a second, as if her brain only now registered the idea that the actual owner of Lux may have _some_ experience with managing the work of bartenders. She shook her head. Mondays were _not_ her favourite part of the week.

"Even if, he could have called in sick that day. Besides, like I said, his address is closer and if he does work in a bar, chances are he will be at home in the morning. This way we can deal with him quickly and know where we stand."

As it turned out 'quickly' could be a relative term when faced with the LA traffic. An hour later, she was seriously considering if switching on the sirens would be excusable just to get them out of the traffic jam. Mondays were just the worst.

III

Once they finally arrived at Martinez's home, Chloe was simply grateful they weren't stuck in traffic any longer. Still, it felt somewhat anticlimactic that once they got there, all it took was Lucifer asking the man for the name of the bar he worked in and then making one phone call to the owner, whom he _unsurprisingly _knew, to confirm the man's alibi.

Thankfully, he made no comment stating he told her so, sparing what was left of her dignity. Instead, Lucifer proposed getting lunch before continuing. After glancing at her watch, trying not to think how much time they wasted on traffic, Chloe let him lead her to a nearby bistro that he seemed to believe would be to her liking.

She took in a deep breath. There was a smell of fresh baked pastries in the air and she suddenly realised she could really eat something. Besides, despite all the wasted time, they had a good chance of resolving one angle of the case one way or another today. That had to count for something.

III

A bell chimed as they opened the door. The bistro wasn't large, but it was clean and gave a feeling of pleasant cosiness. There was a number of tables covered in flower-themed tablecloths with soft chairs around them. The enticing smell that led them to the door was even more prominent inside. A few patrons were in, reading newspapers and sipping coffee. This didn't seem to be a place one typically went to in order to grab a rushed meal during a short break.

They approached the counter, next to which, in a glass display, was a selection of still-steaming pastries cooling on a cloth in a woven basket.

"Those look nice," Chloe admitted, pointing to the puff pastries, that, according to a small sign next to the basket, were apparently spinach and cheese rolls.

"Then why don't you grab us a table, Detective, while I order for us."

"I can't just let you buy me lunch like that. Besides, you paid for everything yesterday too. That's hardly fair."

"Actually, you _can_ let me do just that. It will be my genuine pleasure to treat you and I'm sure you realise I could buy this whole place and still consider it casual expenditure."

"Lucifer—"

"Honestly, Detective. I have absolute strangers approaching me regularly, expecting exorbitant things from me and you can't deal with the idea of me wanting to treat my partner to a small lunch?"

Chloe might have been tempted to argue if it wasn't for the fact that there was a note in his voice that belied his typical self-assuredness. She looked at him for a moment.

"Alright, fine. But I get to buy you lunch sometime in return."

"You've got yourself a deal, Detective." He grinned at her before turning to a young man in a black apron who emerged from the back carrying another basket of pastries. As soon as he caught his eye, the man returned the smile.

III

Chloe just had time to select a nice table, shrug off her jacket, and drape it over the back of the chair when Lucifer joined her, carrying a round wooden tray with two large cups of frothy coffee and an assortment of pastries.

"Hungry?" She quirked her eyebrow at the sight.

"A bit of indulgence never hurt anyone," he responded with just a touch of a flirt in his smile, making her roll her eyes.

"So, I warned Dan that Trixie might drag him shopping for dinosaur shirts today. I honestly though she was past the dinosaur stage by now."

"From what I understand, the one in question is supposed to be humorous. And sequinned, which might make quite a difference, you understand."

"And you say you don't know how to handle kids. I suppose I should be grateful the dinosaurs aren't still around or she would probably talk you into giving her one as a pet."

"I will admit, your spawn has become somewhat tolerable, but I expect it's more of an exception than a rule. And had I decided on such gift I'd probably have gone for something like sinosauropteryx. If I recall, they were rather easy on the eye and probably wouldn't make much more problematic pets than a dog."

Chloe blinked at him. "Seriously—"

"Of course after a certain tantrum of my mother's a pet dinosaur became a bit of an impossibility. Those that were still around eventually evolved into birds, so the closest approximation you could get now would probably be a parrot or a canary. Do you think your spawn would like a parakeet?"

As surreal as Lucifer's ramblings usually were, she knew better than to ignore a question like that.

"You're not buying Trixie a parakeet!"

"Are you sure? She might like it."

"_No_. No parakeets."

"Well, if you insist. Is this some bad experience with pets speaking, Detective?"

"Not as such. I mean, you know about Kraken. I also had a cat when I was a kid. I found her in the street and took her home. My dad helped me take her to the vet, and taught me how to take care of her, but with his shifts and with my mum on the sets all the time everything was pretty much up to me." Chloe took a sip of her coffee. "And then one day she ran out as someone was opening the door. I searched the whole neighbourhood three times a day, put up posters, my dad even asked the guys from the patrol to keep an eye open, but I never saw her again." She closed her eyes for a moment to chase away the memory, and then took another sip of the coffee. "What about you? Any pets? And _please_ don't say anything about hellhounds."

"I won't. They're a myth anyway. I _did _own a few horses in the past but as wonderful as they were, I don't suppose they would qualify."

She blinked as she bit into the warm pastry. The taste definitely matched the appetizing scent. "Horses? Really?"

"You must understand, owning them was the mark of one's status. But they _were_ beautiful and fascinating creatures and I found myself growing fond of them."

"I just bet. The closest contact I had with horses was when my Mum suggested I learn to ride because it might be useful in my acting career." She finished the first pastry and reached for another one.

"I suppose that was a reasonable advice. Especially given the number of fantasy films she acted in."

"What if I told you her own skills in the area only went as far as not falling off at the walk?"

"In that case I would speculate she wished for you to succeed where she could not."

"Or she projected her unfulfilled ambitions onto me. Must have been such a disappointment when I chose to be a cop instead."

"At least not before you made a rather spectacular mark in the history of cinematography with a certain favourite film of mine."

"_Lucifer!_"

He only grinned at her and bit into a pastry in a way that strongly suggested he was trying to seduce it.

III

It might have been the lunch that lifted her spirits a bit, because when they returned to the car and started driving to the second address, she found the drive to be less frustrating, and she wasn't going to speculate on the LA traffic suddenly improving.

Admittedly, when they left the main city area, the road got gradually emptier until they were alone leading up to the house of John Morris. It was an old, one story building, kept in good condition but visibly lacking some fresh paint. A rusty bicycle was chained to the front porch.

"Nice place. You think he might be our guy?" Chloe asked as a way of making conversation while they exited the car.

"Only one way to find out. Shall we?"

They quickly mounted the three steps leading to the door. She knocked, loudly. When there was no answer, she tried again, more forcefully.

"LAPD! Open up!"

She tried the door only to discover it was locked, while Lucifer used the time to look through one of the windows.

"If this is the man we are looking for, it doesn't seem likely he'll be able to get to the door," he stated, pointing to a figure in a chair, with its head collapsed on the table.

"He might need help. We need to –" Chloe broke off when Lucifer grabbed the doorknob and turned it, opening the door. She noted to herself to try to analyse later whether it was possible to break a lock without visibly using any excessive force. She quickly drew her gun and entered the house.

The living room was clear, save for the man at the table who, sadly, no longer had a pulse and was already cooling. There was a bottle and a glass on the table in front of him, as well as some strange pictures and what looked like printouts of the documents she saw on the internet forum. She quickly went to clear the kitchen. There was nobody there, but there was an empty, freshly washed glass in the sink and a washcloth on the table as if someone left washing and drying the dishes unfinished very recently. She stepped back to the living room, seeing no alternative exit from the kitchen.

"Doesn't it look a bit odd to you, Detective, that all those papers are simply scattered around him? There is no system or a common topic there, almost as if someone was trying to make a statement. I don't see why he would do that. He probably didn't even need to pull out half of these because he would think he already knew what was in them."

She glanced at her partner. "Not as strange as the still wet glass in the kitchen. I think someone was –"

"Don't move," the command rang in the air.

The door to the bedroom that Chloe was hoping to check next suddenly opened, revealing Steven Nowicki, holding a large calibre rifle. What made the image a bit comical was him handling the gun in yellow rubber cleaning gloves. A piece of the puzzle suddenly fell into place.

"The unfinished house. Morris was one of the builders you hired, wasn't he?"

"As a matter of fact, he was. Now drop your gun and slide it towards me."

A quick calculation told Chloe that with the angle she was at, she had no chance of making a shot and the calibre of the man's weapon practically guaranteed an entry wound the size of her fist. If he shot her, she wouldn't stand a chance; so for the moment, she had to comply. Still, she also needed to keep him talking.

She held her hand out, slowly lowering the gun and then pushing it towards the man.

"So what's the connection between the two of you? Was it just the work in his house?"

She noticed Lucifer was inching his way towards herout of the corner of her eye and minutely shook her head.

"Oh, he was such a pleasant man. Always willing to do small things for free if he saw you as his friend. It's much cheaper to befriend people like that than to pay them. Of course, he was touched on the head, always expecting some Soviet attack; but indulging him was easy."

"He was, wasn't he?" Lucifer locked eyes with the man, his voice sickly sweet. "I'm sure you made it easy to convince him he was right. A mention here, a forged document there... Tell me, did he trust you enough to show you where he turned to in order to verify his delusions?"

"Oh, he couldn't wait to tell me, as soon as he thought he found someone who could believe him. The problem was getting him to shut up about it."

"But you still played along, making him believe it was the two of you against some conspiracy, didn't you? It was so convenient until his willingness to talk was a risk to you."

The dots connected in Chloe's head. The washed glass.

"He trusted you, so you sat down together for a drink. You poisoned his."

Nowicki turned to look at her as she spoke. "You think you are so smart, Detective? Too bad there will be nothing to prove that."

"You fed into his paranoia, until you brought him to the point where he was willing to kill a girl just for a _shirt_ she was wearing. And then you eliminated him as a possible loose end." She could hear the cold fury in her partner's voice as he spoke from her side. He might have been trying to get the man to look back at him, but Nowicki was now clearly focusing on her, his eyes narrowing.

This wasn't good. Enraging a suspect who recently killed someone in cold blood was never a good idea. She sometimes wondered if Lucifer pulled stunts like that trying to draw the potential fire away from her or if he simply forgot they weren't bulletproof.

Nowicki, keeping the rifle pointed in their general direction, slowly picked up her gun as well. He then trained it on her, cautiously placing the larger weapon on a dresser. His hand was trembling slightly. It was possible he never expected how heavy a rifle like that could be. That might point to his inexperience with guns in general, but Chloe wasn't willing to bet her life on it. He seemed to be holding her gun confidently.

"Now we are going to take a little walk outside," the man said, motioning for them to leave the house.

They had no choice but to comply.

III

As they were marching farther and farther beyond the house and into the desert, Chloe couldn't help but wonder if he simply wanted to take care of the execution far enough from the house so it wouldn't cause any unfortunate questions. She tried to keep herself from doing something desperate by telling herself that had the man wanted a clean execution, he hopefully wouldn't carry it out within walking distance of the house.

Then again, it wasn't his house to begin with and whatever happened would likely be blamed on Morris anyway. Unfortunately, Nowicki was too far awayto even attempt disarming him. She glanced to the side to look at her partner, who seemed to take it as an encouragement.

"I'm sure this is not what you want to be doing, Steven," Lucifer turned slightly to the man, catching his eye.

"I –" the man broke off.

"Oh, come on, I'm sure there are things you desire. Why don't you tell me what they are," her partner's voice dropped slightly as he was speaking.

"I don't–" the man started talking again.

"Well, come on. What is it you _really_ want?"

"I want to eliminate all the evidence of my wrongdoing. I want to be safe from going to jail. I don't want to risk someone knowing too much." The man shook his head, breaking the eye contact.

"I'm sure we can come to some arrangement."

"No!" Nowicki shook his head and tightened his grip on the gun. "A few more steps and there is a flap on the ground. Open it and step in."

Either the man shook off the hold of Lucifer's charm after breaking the eye contact, or his words only pushed him further into his conviction. Still, Chloe decided she had to work with what she had, hoping the man would get distracted. As she slowly bent down to open the heavy trapdoor, she started talking.

"You have to realise that no matter what you do, there will still be evidence. Don't make the situation worse for yourself. I mean, I'm pretty sure you weren't the one taking care of those people coming to the US. What makes you so sure those doing that won't expose you? I'm sure they've been in this business far longer than you have. They probably even approached you when they realised you had problems, not the other way round."

"Shut up! You know nothing about it!" Well, she definitely had his attention but he was still pointing the gun at them. "Now what are you waiting for? Step in!"

Chloe looked down at what looked like stairs leading to a storm cellar. Either the man was hoping to keep them there, which wouldn't be a bad option, considering they still had their phones on them, or he wanted to save himself time digging graves somewhere in the desert.

She slowed her movements hoping to shorten the distance in case it became apparent that fighting with the armed man was their only chance. But no – at this point he wouldn't need them to go inside if he wanted to shoot them now. Even if he wanted to hide their bodies, it would be easier to kill them now than in a dark cellar of some sort, and the trapdoor was close enough that he could simply roll their bodies in; which meant keeping them prisoners was the more likely option for the time being.

She was broken out of her decidedly dark musings when Lucifer motioned her to go first and she realised he intended to act as her shield if it came to the worst, which she wanted to protest, but had no idea how to without drawing attention to them. She missed her bulletproof vest, she decided.

Once they were downstairs, she was somewhat surprised to see Nowicki also came down, still keeping the weapon trained at them.

"Press the button," he instructed, and Chloe suddenly realised that what she thought to be a storm cellar was in reality a very small, narrow, reinforced room with an elevator door on one of the walls. How was it even – power generator? Then again, would she have noticed if there were solar panels somewhere close to power the thing?

She silently did as she was told. Whether he actually intended to follow them to the elevator was unclear but if he did, the resulting closer distance might prove a chance to try to disarm him.

That particular hope evaporated quickly when the door opened, revealing an industrial size elevator – which looked _a bit _out of place in what was basically a hole in the ground in the middle of nowhere.

She didn't know if her surprise was that visible or if the man started feeling more confident, but she heard Nowicki's voice behind her.

"John was rather paranoid about the whole cold war thing you, know."

"I'd say that's rather a given, seeing how you managed to brainwash him enough to kill someone for you," Lucifer responded, once again coming between her and Nowicki, drawing the man's attention away. She might have been touched by the gesture if she wasn't annoyed by his endangering himself pointlessly.

"Well, I have to say the atomic bunker he built for himself makes an impression," the man said when they all stepped into the elevator. He pulled a lever pushing the cabin into motion. "You might as well take a good look, you're going to spend some time here."

That, Chloe decided, sounded vaguely optimistic. Whatever the man planned apparently wasn't immediate, so they should have time to escape or call for backup. At this point, trying to attack and disarm him sounded more risky than just going along with whatever he was planning, because it could potentially push him too far; this way, they could regroup when they had a chance.

Their journey downwards was slow and when the door opened, it revealed a corridor, poorly lit by old lamps on the wall. Stale air hit Chloe's nose but she knew better than to comment on it and shot Lucifer a warning look because of course he _would _remark on something like that. The last thing they needed was to make the man more unstable.

"Go on," Nowicki motioned with the gun, indicating they should go down the corridor. They passed two heavy doors before finally reaching the back wall. A pipe was running across it. "Now take your handcuffs and cuff his left hand, put them behind the pipe and cuff your right hand.

Slowly, trying not to let the man out of her sight, Chloe did as instructed. Silently, she observed that by wanting her right hand immobilised, he likely considered her the more dangerous of them. Still, their current predicament wasn't that bad. The man was likely to lower his guard now that he thought they couldn't move, and she knew for a fact that Lucifer would do away with the cuffs in a ridiculously short time. If the man intended to keep them here, he would be in for a nasty surprise.

"All done," she stated for good measure, drawing Nowicki's attention.

"Good. Now throw me the key," he ordered.

Chloe complied, throwing the key in his direction, mentally rolling her eyes at the fact that only now the man thought to tell her to do that.

Nowicki failed to catch the item but then slowly picked it from the ground.

"I hope you like it here." His cold, twisted smile somehow reminded Chloe of the man's behaviour when she first met him. "Because you are going to stay here for the rest of your lives, however short they may be. I doubt anyone will find you here."

With that, the man pocketed the gun, turned calmly and went to the elevator.

Once his back was turned, Lucifer immediately reached for the handcuffs.

"Do you think he's a psychopath?" Chloe mouthed quietly as he freed his hand and reached with both to free hers.

"You'd have to ask Linda. That's more of her field. Shall we?" he responded, already taking first steps towards the elevator. Chloe ran to catch up with him.

III

When the elevator door was about to close, Chloe caught a glimpse at what the man was attaching to the panel and felt her blood run cold.

"Bomb!" she shouted as the metal door locked in a clang and the car started lifting upwards. "He had a bomb in there. If he is planning to destroy the only way up–" Her thoughts switched a gear. "We're too exposed here. We need to find shelter."

"Then I suppose it's a good thing someone thought of installing doors this thick," she saw Lucifer already grabbing a handle, motioning her to get into the room.

She had time to take about one step, when suddenly everything shook, the place plunged into darkness and she became aware of being in a lot of pain. She wondered whether everything really happened that fast or if she simply lost consciousness for a bit.

"Lucifer?" she asked into darkness, feeling around her, trying to make some sense of the situation. At the same time, she reached into her pocket to fish out her phone. It didn't turn on when she pressed it, and feeling the screen she could tell it was shattered.

"I'm here, Detective," his voice sounded somewhere close to her.

"Are you all right?"

"It would seem so. Quite a feat given your presence, I should say," his tone was light, but she couldn't help the feeling that it was forcefully so.

"Is your phone working?" she asked, then as an afterthought, she added, "I can't move my leg."

A second later, the light from the screen illuminated his face.

"No coverage, I'm afraid." He shook his head before looking at her. "Can't move it or can't feel it?"

"Just move it. Right now I wish I could feel it a little less," she managed through gritted teeth, as she reached for his phone, quickly selecting the flashlight mode.

Directing the light towards her thigh, she winced at the sight of what seemed to be an open fracture. Then she shone the light at the space around them, trying to assess their situation. Part of the ceiling directly next to the elevator collapsed, but what was left of the door was still partially visible in the form of twisted metal. It seemed too powerful to besimply the force of the blast travelling down. Come to think of it, it came rather fast too.

"I don't think he made it all the way up," she stated finally.

"No, he wouldn't have. Not unless the elevator travelled up at three times the speed it went down," Lucifer agreed, not appearing to care about the topic for a moment, focusing instead on her leg. "It doesn't look good. Your injury."

"Where did he get those explosives anyway?" When she heard her own words, the answer started clarifying itself in her head. Even so, Lucifer chose to answer.

"Struggling for money, owner of a chemical factory staffed half of the time by people who would never go to the Police? He might have had a _special order_from time to time. The only thing unclear about the scenario is the reason to bring it here," he said dismissively. "May we focus on you now?"

"It was probably to plant it here and give us a dead dangerous suspect on a silver platter," she speculated, ignoring the last part.

"I daresay that didn't work out exactly how he imagined it would."

"That's what happens when amateurs try to work explosives. He had something he didn't know how to use and thought it would be as easy as it seems in the movies."

"I don't think that should be our concern for the moment. Besides, I have a feeling that where he is now, he'll go through that explosion enough times to get all the experience in the world," he said darkly. "_Now_, could we try focusing instead on how to help _you_?"

There was an edge to his voice and she suddenly realised he honestly had no idea how to proceed when faced with her injury. She took in a painful breath, absently noting that her ribs must have taken some abuse from the explosion as well.

"I don't think there is much we _can_ do other than the basic first aid," she said, elaborating when she saw he still didn't seem to know what to do. "You know, immobilising, disinfecting, stopping the bleeding. I don't suppose you could spare some of the content of that flask I _know_ you're carrying with you?"

"Right," that seemed to get him moving.

He took the flask out, then shrugged his jacket off and placed it rolled under her head. Which was a nice gesture but it also made her wonder if his entire knowledge of first aid wasn't derived from movies, which wasn't exactly a comforting thought at the moment.

"Now, Detective, do you want that disinfectant working internally or externally? Because I assure you, twenty year old single malt is much more pleasant when drunk, not poured on open wounds."

"I prefer to stay lucid, thank you very much. At least one of us should think rationally." She looked at him pointedly.

"Such mistrust in my abilities, Detective. Whatever should I do with you?" He sounded confident enough and sent her a smile, but she couldn't help feeling his heart wasn't in it. He really was out of his depth, wasn't he?

"Right now, I wouldn't say no if you helped me with my leg," she tried to bring their current situation back to focus, for both of their sakes.

"Of course," he nodded, walking away for a moment and coming back with two pieces of metal that looked like they used to be a part of a door frame. Chloe couldn't help but be impressed by the way he managed to see those in the poor lighting. "I hope those will be sufficient for a splint."

"Probably the best we could do here anyway. Now if you could–" she never got to finish, instead hissing in pain as alcohol made contact with the open wound. Before she could get herself together she heard a ripping sound as her partner's shirt, which was likely worth half of her salary, was reduced to strips of fabric he proceeded to use to bandage her leg and attach the splint. Perhaps, she allowed herself to think, he wasn't as bad at it as she initially thought.

"Is this all right?" she heard him ask, bringing her thoughts into focus. "It's not too tight, is it?"

"Wouldn't be a point if it was loose, would it?" she answered, before looking him in the eye. "Thank you, Lucifer."

"I suppose the ordinary response would be to say it was my pleasure, but to be honest, I can think of at least a hundred more pleasurable things we could be doing instead."

And _there_ was the Lucifer she knew. She sighed.

"Well, since those aren't an option right now, I don't suppose you could take a look at how badly we are cut off from the shaft? It seems to be the only way out of here," she moved the cell a bit so it would shine some light at the rubble.

He stood and looked critically at the illuminated spot.

"It will likely take some work but it shouldn't be impossible to clear that up," he assessed. "But wouldn't you rather wait for some help to get here, Detective? I can't say I like the idea of you trying to get out when you're injured."

"Don't you get it, Lucifer? There will be no backup. Nobody is likely to miss us. Trixie is with Dan today. Maze is out of town. The first chance someone _could_ wonder where we were would be tomorrow when I'm missing work; even then there is some time from anyone noticing to them tracking my car. Which isn't all that close to where we are now, so even if someone comes, they could easily miss us. Not that there isn't a good chance that by that time it would be too–" the voice froze in her throat as at that very moment the minimal light they had from the phone disappeared as the battery gave out, engulfing them in total darkness.

For a second there was absolute silence, the weight of the implications settling in. She felt a tear slide down her cheek.

"I'm never going to see Trixie again," she whispered in sudden realisation. "I should have told her this morning how much I loved her instead of hurrying her not to be late for school."

"Don't be ridiculous, Detective. Of course you will see that spawn of yours."

"But I won't, don't you see? We won't be able to get out on our own in the dark. I _know_ I already lost quite a bit of blood with that injury. Nobody will find us in time or even think to _look for us _in time. I'm not going to make it. You might, so if you could just tell Trixie–"

"I won't need to be passing any messages, Detective, because you _are_ going to get out of here."

"Lucifer, just think about it. It's too dark to see anything. I–"

She heard him sigh.

"I am thinking about it. I honestly hoped we would get a chance to discuss this under better circumstances but I guess I should have expected Dad would be a cruel bastard like that. Still, seeing as how you seem resigned to seeing some in the near future anyway, I might just as well show you mine now."

For a moment, Chloe was genuinely confused and wondered if her partner wasn't suffering from a mental breakdown. Then she heard a strange rustling sound and before she knew what was happening the whole place was illuminated again with the light... coming from the wings on Lucifer's back?

"Oh God," she breathed out as she was trying to process the sight before her eyes. She had an eerie feeling of trying to add two and two with the reality insisting it made eleven. With her brain working overtime, she finally blurted out the first thing that came to her mind. "I thought you said you had Maze cut them off?"

She saw him grimace.

"Yes, Daddy dearest _does_ seem to be most likely responsible for them growing back," he stated irritably before looking at her with such insecurity in his eyes that she was taken aback by how unlike him it seemed. "Detective– Chloe, I _did_ want to tell you. That was what that voicemail was about. And I _was_ trying, the other day, at the precinct, but it seems my devil face disappeared when _those_ made their unfortunate and rather insistent comeback."

_Devil face_. That stirred a memory Chloe kept neatly wrapped in the corner of her mind for fear of giving her nightmares. She frowned trying to focus on it.

"When you say devil face, do you mean it as in glowing red eyes, red skin, burned looking?" She couldn't really remember the details, as it was a while ago and only for a second, but judging by his eyes widening at her words, she was onto something here. "Yeah, already seen it."

"What?" he sounded completely shocked. "You...have? When?"

She shifted, trying to ignore the wave of pain in her whole body as she did, and reached to the pendant she was wearing.

"Back in that factory. Look, I know Palmetto gave me a bit of a reputation at the time but I wouldn't shoot my partner, no matter how annoying he was being at the time, if I thought he was a regular human. Funny how that turned out, huh?"

"And you never thought to bring that up later?"

"I _was_ about to ask you the same, now that you mention it. Though I did also work hard on convincing myself I only imagined what I saw. When–" she broke off and moaned as the blunt pain she was feeling in the abdomen suddenly took a turn for sharpness. She tried to focus on breathing but it seemed surprisingly hard at the moment.

III

"Detective? What is it?" all thoughts of Chloe's previous exposure to his nature disappeared in the face of her very apparent pain.

His eyes traveled to her hands, protectively moving to her abdomen and he instinctively reached as well, to assess the situation. Upon his slightest touch, she cried out in agony but even then, the moment was enough to establish her abdomen was hard and her overall paleness no longer seemed to be associated with the stressful situation. One didn't rule Hell for millennia without knowing what internal bleeding looked like.

"Oh Dad, please no," he whispered, looking around. Even if clearing the path to the elevator shaft would be rather easy with his strength, it would still take some time. Time she didn't have. Before he even finished processing the thought, he already folded his hands in prayer. "Amenadiel, whatever you are doing, get your arse over here now. If I ever asked you for anything, this is it. Please, brother. If not for me, then for Chloe."

Nothing happened. Of course, he knew his brother still said his powers weren't working, but if they did when Linda needed help, surely they could now? But there was no response. His heart sinking, Lucifer looked at his Detective. Her breaths were shallow and there were droplets of sweat on her forehead, but she still seemed conscious.

"Chloe?"

"Lucifer, I'm sorry." This was absolutely ridiculous. What did _she_ have to be sorry for? "Will you tell Trixie that I wanted to get back to her and tell her how I love her?"

This wasn't happening. Of all the cruel jokes his father played on him this was surely taking the biscuit. He felt trapped in this small underground corridor as everything he had ever hoped for and held dear seemed to be crumbling before his eyes. Only a moment ago, he had felt a glimmer of hope for her acceptance and thought them leaving this place to be an insignificant annoyance rather than the problem she seemed to think it was.

A thought occurred to him. Did she know? Was _that_ what she was sorry for? Surely she had to have felt something?

"You have nothing to be sorry for," he informed her firmly, just in case, through his tightened throat. "And don't even _think_ of feeling guilty about anything right now."

They were running out of time. His brother was nowhere to be seen. It was possible he never even heard him in the first place. Ironic as it sounded, it would literally take a miracle to save her now. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to prevent appearance of any tears that might have been threatening to fall. Then he paused at the thought. It would take a miracle. Granted, it had been _a while,_ but if Dad took his face away...

He opened his eyes, looking at her face.

"Chloe?" She made a non-committal sound that he had to assume was a sign that she was listening. "May I try something? I don't know if it will work, I haven't tried anything like this since that _rather well publicised_ falling apart with my Dad."

"I trust you," she managed to whisper, looking him straight in the eye. That right there, he thought, was why he loved her.

TBC

Reviews will be appreciated.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Any intellectual property attached to the story below belongs to parties other than the humble author of the story in question. Who would gladly transfer even the rights to the remaining few original ideas to the parties currently in possession of the rights to the recognisable elements as a gesture of gratitude for presenting the stories to fans like herself. No profit is being derived from the following work and the purposes for its creation are purely recreational.

Many thanks to my beta silver-doe287 for helping me with this story.

Partnership

Chapter 4

Chloe was in a world of pain and wasn't fooling herself into thinking that Lucifer's presence changed anything in particular. She knew him well enough to know that for all his impressive skills, he didn't have some reality-warping powers that prevented humans from dying. If he had, she could just bet he would be regularly playing duets with Father Frank, the irony of their friendship be damned.

Still, when he looked at her with newfound determination and asked if he could give something a try, she agreed immediately. She trusted him and she knew he would never forgive himself for not trying out whatever idea he had, even if it was based on the slimmest of chances and would never work.

She felt one of his hands being placed firmly on her leg, while the other went to her abdomen. Before she could even make a sound of discomfort, she gasped suddenly as a blindingly bright light emitted from his hands and somehow entered her body. It was an overwhelming sensation of both excruciating pain and ultimate pleasure mixed in one, which, in some corner of her mind, she didn't doubt her partner would eventually manage to bring down to a sexual joke. She felt as if liquid light entered her veins and was filling her so completely, that there was no place for anything else. Simultaneously, she both felt she couldn't take it anymore and didn't want it to stop.

And then it was gone. She drew in a shaky breath, trying to decide if the sudden absence of the sensation or any pain, as well as the sudden feeling of weightlessness, meant that she had actually died.

"Chloe?"

She felt her whole body shaking, ever so slightly, but she tried to breathe in to get back to reality.

"You know, given the present company and the smell of explosives in the air I really hope I didn't die, because otherwise it would seem that all those charity drives I took part in were just a waste of time."

There was a momentary silence as he stilled, looking at her intently. Then he chuckled, if a bit forcefully.

"I'm afraid if you ever do, _many years from now, _mind you, you are still heading for a much more boring place. But at least then I'll have the comfort of knowing there is someone perfectly capable of telling my siblings off when necessary."

"Lucifer?" Chloe, spoke again after a minute, as he seemed focused on untying the now redundant splint, revealing the unmarked flesh where a moment ago was a nasty wound. He looked up. "Thank you. For whatever that was."

"You're welcome. I'm just glad it worked. I was afraid it wouldn't."

"Why?"

"Let's just say that it should be done by regular angels, not fallen ones. But since recently my Dad seemed to think it was a good idea to make me pretend to be something I no longer am, I thought I could just as well take it to the limit." He looked at her. "You are shaking. You should probably rest for a while."

She was about to protest, saying that resting was all she was doing since the explosion, but before she could, she felt him gathering her in his arms. He still wasn't wearing a shirt and his body was a bit warmer than she would expect if she still thought he was human. Then again, if he _were_ human he probably wouldn't be wrapping one of his _wings_ around her, giving her additional comfort. He was holding her a bit rigidly, as if he couldn't yet believe she was still with him.

With a sudden clarity, she realised that until a moment ago, he was convinced – if his frantic whispers were any indication – that he was losing her forever. And forever to him a meant a whole lot more than to a regular person. There wasn't really anything she could do to reassure him, so she settled for the next best thing - distraction. She moved into a more comfortable position against him, looked up at his face and smiled.

"So, why LA of all places?" she asked.

A moment later he was softly telling her about his current time on Earth, starting from his arrival a couple years ago, _wait, wasn't that one of her cases back then? Pity she had no idea at the time,_ and moving on to their first official meeting and further. She listened quietly, as he related the familiar events from his point of view, afraid to speak so as not to chase the moment away. She had a feeling he might think she was asleep and that was what was making it easier for him to share his thoughts.

The feeling turned into certainty when, in the same soft, matter-of-fact voice he informed her of being shot to death and making a deal with his father to keep her safe. It took her a moment to even process the information, with wrapping her mind around it seemingly nowhere in sight. Still, the detective part of her brain couldn't help make a few connections to shape a theory.

"Lucifer?" she whispered. "I don't suppose you put some expiration date on that deal, did you?"

He seemed taken by surprise. "Why would you ask?"

"It's just, I had this idea – seems a bit of a coincidence that after you made that deal, shortly before you might actually need angelic powers to help me, you suddenly find yourself with your wings back and no way of switching to your alter ego, don't you think?"

She felt him going absolutely still next to her. After what had to be full two minutes of silence, he spoke.

"If that were true, I think you found the one explanation of Dad's actions that I can't really hold against him."

He didn't say anything more afterwards and Chloe found herself slowly drifting to sleep.

III

She had no idea how long she was drowsing but when she awoke, with certain disorientation before the memory of everything that transpired came back to her, she realised that Lucifer was no longer next to her and that the way to the elevator shaft was now clear of any obstacles.

"Lucifer?" she voiced quietly, sitting up.

"I'm here," his voice sounded next to her. When Chloe looked at him, any chance of dismissing her memories as simply a dream evaporated at the sight of her partner's softly glowing wings. She rubbed her eyes to keep herself from staring.

"How long was I out?"

"About two hours. I didn't look at the time when you fell asleep."

"You cleared the path to the elevator." This was more a statement than a question.

"You asked me to, remember?"

"Oh, yeah. I suppose I did," she admitted, standing up. It was strange how absurdly _well_ she was feeling at the moment. Not only did nothing really hurt, but she couldn't even feel the weariness of her muscles, not to mention the constant slight pull of her gunshot scar she had learned to ignore was strangely missing.

She bent down for his jacket and dusted it absently with her hand, more out of the need to find herself something to focus on than anything else.

"I guess that means we could try getting out of here," she stated with a certain disbelief at how simple that sounded after everything that transpired here.

"That _was_ the general point of it, wasn't it?" he teased before forcing what was left of the door away from the shaft with ease that should definitely _not_ be possible.

The sight that greeted their eyes when he did was a rather gruesome one and quickly served to bring her back to the reality of what had happened to get them trapped here in the first place. Involuntarily she gasped at the sight, internally chastising herself for the reaction that should have never come from a homicide detective.

"Yes, it paints quite a picture, doesn't it? Let's just hope the coroner likes jigsaw puzzles."

The dry humour of her partner took her by surprise for a second, before the downing horror of just how high his tolerance for macabre had to be after seeing the actual _Hell_ hit her like a ton of bricks. She looked at him for a second, before forcing herself to look up the shaft in hopes of finding some way to climb to the surface. After a deep breath she felt she could muster enough of a neutral tone to ask.

"So Dante was onto something then and you'd call that an average Tuesday?"

He chuckled, "If I recall Alighieri made for a fine drinking companion but I only decided to meet him _after _he wrote the Comedy. If anything, it is more along the lines of what Hieronymus Bosch depicted. But no. The actual punishments are much more personalised, drawing from what people know they deserve. Of course that doesn't mean they never end up on the more grisly side," he explained nonchalantly, as if they were talking about the weather. "Detective, may I ask what you are looking for?"

She turned her attention from the shaft back to him. "Just trying to find a way up. I mean, the construction had to be reinforced in case of any earthquakes but there is no telling if the explosion didn't weaken it."

"Have you already forgotten that one of us actually has wings?"

She laughed nervously. Yeah, forgetting that would be quite a feat.

"Don't know if you've noticed, but there isn't exactly room here for you to be able to spread them," she countered, her eyes travelling to them unbidden.

"It's barely two stories," he stated dismissively, as if that explained everything.

"And it makes a difference how?"

"It means –" Suddenly he picked her up and before she knew what was happening she felt a strange rush of air. She blinked and when she opened her eyes she realised they were already at the top of the shaft. Instead of letting her down, Lucifer carried her outside, a small smirk playing on his lips. "– that I don't actually need to spread them fully to reach this height. Now, if I actually _did_ make a full use of them..."

"Lucifer what are you-" Chloe never managed to finish as in that moment his reason for still carrying her was made blatantly clear when with one flap of the wings they were suddenly elevated to what had to be at least a _mile_ above the ground. Without even thinking about it she held tighter onto her partner. She tried to take a few calming breaths. "I would have thought you'd need to flap them a few times to take off. You know, like eagles and such do."

He actually chuckled at that. "I was just trying to give you a bit of a view, not get us out of the atmosphere."

"Right." Chloe silently wondered if the wings for an angel weren't a source of pride that she accidentally insulted by implying he couldn't get them out, resulting in him now showing off. Of course, she thought clinically, even without any implied insults, he always seemed more than willing to show off any parts of his anatomy that he felt proud of, whether she wanted to see them or not.

Again, she took a few calming breaths and tried to make some sense of the situation. Granted, she had worked hard on mastering the skill of going along with whatever weird, impossible things she witnessed when it came to Lucifer and setting them aside to try and digest them in her own time later (she wouldn't be able to close any cases if she hadn't); but she was now realising that _that _was when her partner was attempting to be, well, whatever passed for discreet when it came to him. Now that he wasn't actually hiding anymore, the kids wheels were off and she definitely needed to put that skill into the highest gear.

The comforting thing was, that meant making things go rationally for a while, hopefully giving her some much-needed stability.

"Lucifer?" she looked at him, forcing herself to loosen her grip slightly to be able to do that. "As nice as this is, we still have a crime scene down there that we have to–" she made the mistake of looking down to glance at the place and tightened her grip again. "Do you think you could bring us down next to the car so I can radio it in?"

There was a rush of wind and before she could blink, she was standing on the solid ground again. She felt her head swimming and she held onto her partner for support.

"Everything all right, Detective?" he actually sounded concerned.

"I– yeah. Just not used to having nothing but thin air between myself and the hard surface a few thousand feet below me."

"I would never drop you," he assured in a low tone, still holding her close.

"Thanks, but just so you know, I'm sure it will be more reassuring when I have more than a few hours to process the fact that my partner can actually _fly_. Speaking of which, I'm about to call everything in so pretty soon there will be people here and explaining _those_ might be just a touch problematic." She gestured to the wings before reaching inside the car for the radio. She was quite proud of herself that her voice didn't waver as she reported to dispatch when with a slight roll of his shoulders Lucifer folded his wings into– _nothing?_ She swallowed.

"Is this better?" her partner asked cheekily, turning around to give her a better view -or possibly to seduce her… with him that was always a possibility. She was about to say something when her mind finally processed the sight of his _unmarked_ back.

"Almost," she responded, handing him the jacket she realised she was still holding in her hand. It didn't look too well right now but it would have to do. She looked up to see his questioning look. "What? Don't even pretend you _didn't_ sleep with half of the precinct. That's a lot of people trained to notice details such as someone suddenly missing sizeable scars. If you want to parade around shirtless, at least wait long enough to be able to say you got rid of those in some rational manner. Thankfully LA _does _have more plastic surgeons per square mile than any other place in the world."

"In case you forgot, Detective, I'm rather opposed to lying," he snapped, but at least he put on the jacket as she asked him to.

"Well then, say that you know this _miracle worker_ who did that for you," she bit back, before realising he was actually chuckling.

"I suppose that could work, but between you and me, Detective, Dad is really not your hands-on guy. He prefers to delegate."

"Right." Chloe closed her eyes and counted to ten. Whoever said it was good when partners were open with each other clearly never considered a situation when a casual conversation could accidentally lead to deep theological implications. She took a calming breath: she could do it. "Do you think Nowicki had enough time to cover his tracks or did we interrupt him in time? It would look much better in the report if we have something more directly tying the cases than our say so."

III

Chloe was quite proud of herself that she managed to keep her thoughts on the case for over half an hour as they sat in her car, waiting for the crime scene unit, but by that time she ran out of topics related to it and her mind started wondering. Currently, she wasn't sure she was ready to touch the Heaven and Hell aspect of what she learned with a hundred foot pole. Still, random thoughts were appearing in her head and refusing to let go. Before she knew what she was doing, she heard herself voicing a question.

"So all those Witches' Sabbaths people described over the years... Were they...?"

"Do you mean to ask whether I would be interested in independent, strong-minded women or if I would throw a party ending in sex with multiple partners?" Lucifer smirked in response.

"That– actually makes a surprising amount of sense," she admitted.

"If it makes you feel any better, that was all that ever happened. It was Dad's sycophantic followers that came up with all the black magic and gore that was added to the imagery."

"Good to know," she said and realised she actually meant it. This was, after all, as close as she could come to historical evidence that her partner was always the person she knew. It was a strangely comforting thought.

Just then, she spotted the police cars approaching their location. She glanced at her watch.

"Looks like they are finally here. About time."

"It _is_ a bit of a drive, I suppose," her partner allowed with an uncharacteristic understanding. "Is waiting here with me this straining for your nerves?"

So _that _was what it was about.

"Actually, I don't really mind you so much as the feeling as if I had just crawled through a mine of some sort and being stuck here waiting without even the possibility to clean up."

"Is that it?"

"Yes," she stated emphatically for his sake. "It is. I just want to be done with the scene, so come on, let's go meet the guys."

As they were exiting the car, Chloe glanced in the general direction of the scene, suddenly realising that the forensic team was going to find her blood there, with no visible injuries on her part to confirm their story. And the case was already problematic with the two potential suspects dead.

With a clenched stomach, she reached into the glove compartment and took out a Swiss army knife. Before she could lose her resolve, she opened it, gritted her teeth and ran the blade down her left arm. It was sharp and dug deeper than she anticipated but there was no helping it now.

She slipped the knife into her pocket, pressed her hand to the cut and went to stand next to her partner, whose eyes were immediately drawn to the blood trickling down her hand.

"Detective, what have you done?" he sounded truly horrified and she forced herself to smile to let him know she was fine.

"Provided an explanation for my blood down there."

"There had to be another way."

"Well, I honestly didn't see one and they are almost here. Let's meet them and be done with that, shall we?"

"Shouldn't we take care of your arm first?"

"I suppose I could get some gauze from the first aid kit."

"Then let's do that, shall we? I'm sure they won't mind waiting for us for a moment."

There was so much genuine concern in his voice that Chloe couldn't help but agree.

III

In the end, they were done with the scene faster than she expected and Chloe couldn't help a nagging suspicion that Lucifer was somehow behind it. Before she knew it, they were in her car again, her partner taking over driving on the grounds of her injury.

"Detective?" His voice drew her away from her thoughts. "Would you mind if we went to my penthouse to freshen up?"

"Can't you just drop me off at my place?"

He sighed. "To be honest, I keep expecting you to have a delayed reaction to what you've been through today. I'd rather not leave you alone tonight. And when everything _does_ catch up with you, my bar is much better stocked than yours could ever be."

Her first reaction was to say no, but after she gave it a bit of thought, she just shrugged. The idea wasn't bad in itself and he really sounded concerned.

"Would you mind just stopping by my apartment first so I can get a change of clothes?"

"If that's what you wish." He nodded.

They drove the rest of the way in silence, with her trying to arrange everything in her head. When they finally stopped next to her apartment, she had a brief thought that she should probably also pack some bandages to take care of the cut on her arm, when she was suddenly hit by the realisation that she didn't feel the sting of the cut anymore. Tentatively, she removed the makeshift dressing only to see that what less than an hour before was a nasty cut, now looked like a thin red line on her otherwise unmarked skin. She couldn't help but look at her partner.

"What did you _do?" _Only when she looked up, she realised he was looking at her arm as surprised as she was. Then his gaze turned thoughtful.

"I _might_ have overdone it a bit when you were injured," he confessed quietly. "You were slipping away and it had been so long, I couldn't tell if what I was doing was enough."

She looked at him and realised that he actually looked apprehensive as he confessed that. She couldn't help herself and touched his cheek, making him meet her eyes.

"Hey, the important thing is, you did it. I'm here. And if there were to be some side-effects, I could certainly imagine worse," she said firmly. "Now just give me a moment to grab some clothes and I'll be right back."

With that, she exited the car, hurrying to her apartment. When she opened the door, it seemed absurd just how _normal_ everything looked after her worldview had been shaken. Forcing herself not to focus on that for a moment, she grabbed an overnight bag and distractedly threw in some clothes at random before zipping the bag and exiting the apartment. She couldn't help feeling that the day's events were slowly catching up with her and she was hoping that Lucifer's presence would help her fend them off for a while longer.

III

She never realised just how late it got until she saw there was already a line of people waiting to get into Lux as they arrived. Feeling more than a little self-conscious all of the sudden, she let Lucifer lead her quickly to the elevator. Once they were riding up, she sighed in relief.

"I'm really glad this day is almost over," she confessed, looking at her partner.

"Yes, I have to say there were parts of it I will most certainly not remember with fondness. Still, seeing how everything seemed to end reasonably well, I think we can both agree it could be worse," he replied as they stepped into the penthouse. "Why don't you go freshen up while I pour you a drink? Unless of course you'd like some company in the shower?"

Chloe rolled her eyes in response. "Really not in the mood for that right now, Lucifer."

"Oh, so there are times when you _are_ in the mood? Why didn't you say something, Detective? I'm sure we could have arranged something."

"Just do the drinks and I'll try not to hog the bathroom for too long, okay?"

"Take as long as you need. You don't have to hurry on my account."

Sparing him one final look, Chloe made her way to the bathroom.

It wasn't until she stepped into the hot shower, doing her best not to think whether it was this big because of the number of people it was supposed to accommodate at once or his wingspan, that she felt just how much she needed this. For the longest time, she couldn't bring herself to step out, feeling a twinge of guilt about Lucifer waiting for his turn in his own shower.

When she finally finished, wrapping herself in a towel and drying her hair with another, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Intrigued, she stepped closer, wiping the fog from the glass. Then, unsure if she was seeing right, she looked down at her shoulder where the gunshot scar should be.

_Should_ being the operative word in this case.

Almost afraid of what she'd see, she slowly unwrapped the towel and looked down. The stretch marks that were there ever since she had Trixie were gone as well.

Overdoing it, as Lucifer called it, sounded strangely inadequate for what she was seeing.

She quickly put some fresh clothes on and hurried out of the bathroom. She definitely needed that drink now.

III

Lucifer was standing by the bar, a tumbler of scotch in his hand and another one waiting for her. He handed it to her as soon as she approached.

"You don't do things by half, do you?" she said, taking a sip of the drink and moving to the couch. He followed, wisely taking the bottle with him.

"Detective?" He asked uncertainly and only then it occurred to her that he actually had no idea what she was talking about.

"I actually never minded the stretch marks that much, you know. My acting career was over anyway and they were a reminder that Trixie is part of me. But I guess you wanted be thorough, huh?"

"In my defence, I _did_ tell you it had been a while. Are you all right otherwise?"

She laughed a touch nervously. "At this point all right doesn't seem to cover it. If there was _ever_ anything wrong with me physically, you probably accidentally fixed it as well."

"Well, I suppose it didn't help that instead of focusing on the general love for Dad's creation like a good little archangel should, I focussed on a bit more _personal_ feelings," he admitted, even if Chloe wasn't entirely certain if he was talking more to her or to himself. Then he seemed to shake off the mood. "In any case, Detective, if you are fine for now, I will leave you for a moment and freshen up a bit myself. And if it turns out your virginity got restored as well, I will be more than willing to help you with getting rid of _that_ particular problem."

Chloe choked on her drink and stared at him as he retreated to his bedroom. And she thought nothing could shake her today anymore.

III

When Lucifer came back, Chloe was still on the couch, twirling the drink in her glass, deep in thought. She heard him approach, but didn't look up.

"I suppose it's a bit too late to become an atheist, huh?" she spoke quietly.

"I would say the time for that was a few proofs of divinity ago, yes," he agreed with a curious tone, clearly unsure where she was going with this.

"My Dad used to believe, you know. For a long while I wanted to believe like him, because he seemed to find that comforting. And then he was shot. Just like that. I was so angry with God. I couldn't believe he would allow something like that to happen. To a good man who was actually following his rules. It took me a while to get over that. When I did, it was because I finally told myself there _wasn't_ anyone looking over us, that people are just people and some of them do horrible things, and the only thing you can do is actually go out and stop them from doing more harm, because nobody is going to do it for you. Because it's people who are ultimately responsible for the way world works."

Lucifer sighed.

"Having had _that_ particular discussion before, I can tell you that Dad would say that he wouldn't do anything because the reason he gave humans free will is so that they could make their own choices with all the consequences that followed," he sat next to her, speaking softly. "He would insist on not doing anything on principle, because then it would mean he was taking the choice away from the people." He paused. "Unless of course he _wanted_ something to happen, then the rules suddenly didn't apply."

"Doesn't sound very fair to me," Chloe managed.

"No, I suppose it isn't. He was so proud of how he set the whole thing up, with him setting out some rules and expecting the humans to comply out of their own free will. I felt someone should point out that it's easy to talk about free will when they weren't actually aware there is a choice to begin with and that it was a bit hypocritical how he left the humans with all the options without even making them aware they had them and still expected complete, unquestioning obedience from the angels."

"Let me guess, an apple got involved?"

"Oh, so you _have_ heard the story before?" he responded teasingly before looking her straight in the eye and turning serious again. "Chloe, I know this is a lot to take in, but for what it's worth, you weren't that far off in the first place. Humans make their own choices and their consequences affect the world without any interference from my Dad. And people like you, standing up to those making the bad choices, are making the world a better place."

"Doesn't sound like much."

"But it has to be enough."

"I suppose it does."

Chloe sipped her drink in silence for a while, realising, to her surprise, that after this talk she felt oddly calm. True, on the one hand the world was nothing like she thought it was, but on the other it definitely was. Plus, there was some comfort in having a partner who could help her bridge the gap, if necessary.

III

Lucifer sat in an armchair, watching the Detective, half-lying on the couch, slowly drifting into sleep, which thankfully wasn't eluding her after everything she had learned. She more than deserved the rest after the events of the day.

"You would probably be more comfortable on the bed, Detective," he told her in a low voice, hoping she would agree to the change of location without waking too much.

"Mmm," she murmured in a way of response. "You know what, Lucifer? I think I'm glad to know now. It should make things easier to be on the same page. There isn't anything else that I should know about, is there?"

Lucifer picked her up and gently carried her to the bed. She still seemed only half-aware of what she was even saying but it didn't make the question any less valid. Sometimes it was hard to have a policy of absolute truthfulness.

"When you wake up tomorrow we need to have a small chat about that Lieutenant of yours," he answered instead.

TBC

Continued in epilogue

Reviews will be appreciated.


	5. Epilogue

Disclaimer: Any intellectual property attached to the story below belongs to parties other than the humble author of the story in question. Who would gladly transfer even the rights to the remaining few original ideas to the parties currently in possession of the rights to the recognisable elements as a gesture of gratitude for presenting the stories to fans like herself. No profit is being derived from the following work and the purposes for its creation are purely recreational.

Many thanks to my beta silver-doe287 for helping me with this story.

Partnership

Epilogue

Chloe woke up to the smell of coffee and something cooking. She turned in bed, wrapping the smooth covers around herself more tightly, trying to steal a few more minutes of sleep. Then she realised the fabric she was touching was silky and definitely unlike any bed sheets she owned. Her eyes fluttered open immediately as her memories returned.

She was in Lucifer's bed, which meant that yesterday's events actually happened and weren't just a dream she had. The tunnel. Her injury. Lucifer's wings. _Lucifer's wings_.

He was a fallen angel. _The _fallen angel, actually.

Somehow, it seemed that just as she had wrapped her mind around it, some new implications occurred to her, leaving her overwhelmed. She drew in a shaky breath, trying to focus.

"I thought I heard you waking up," she heard him speak from the bedroom doorway, and her head snapped up.

He was standing there, in a bathrobe, his hair mussed, holding a cup of coffee. She couldn't help but laugh at the sight. He looked just so _normal_. This wasn't some powerful being that warred with God himself. Just her partner whom she'd worked with for a few years now.

"Hi. Love the hairstyle," she teased him and suddenly she felt her mind settle in the familiar comfort of his presence. So what if there was some additional knowledge she had? Nobody said she had to force herself into theological musings just because she had a source available.

"Wait till you see yours, Detective," he answered with a grin, running his fingers through his hair, somehow achieving a look she didn't doubt some men spent hours before a mirror trying to approximate. "I've made some breakfast if you're interested."

She sat up on the bed.

"Breakfast sounds great. What time is it?"

"Just past seven. We still have time to eat and talk a bit before going to work."

The way he said it made alarm bells ring in her head.

"Don't tell me there is something _else_ I should know about. I'm still trying to regain my footing after yesterday," she teased, giving him an accusatory look. He looked away after a second. With a pang of guilt she realised he actually looked ashamed.

"I'm sorry you had to learn like this, Chloe," he said quietly, looking down.

"Are you? I'm not. It worked out in the end and that's what counts, right?" she stood up and started walking towards bathroom. "Give me five minutes and I'll meet you in the kitchen."

III

When she did arrive to breakfast, she had to blink at the assortment of food on the table.

"Did you get any sleep or were you preparing this all night?" she asked, only partially joking.

"Well, seeing how this is the only area you'd allow me to indulge you when you're staying for breakfast I had to make sure you were satisfied," he smirked.

She rolled her eyes in response, placing an omelette on her plate and taking a bite. A moment later she realised he was looking at her carefully, not eating himself.

"Something wrong?" she asked, worry slowly growing at the sight of his expression.

"Did you mean it about not wanting to hear any more revelations?" he asked cautiously.

"You have to admit, it was a bit to process. But with you looking at me like that, I _know_ there is something and it will only keep nagging me." She took a deep breath. "You don't want to tell me the end of the world is coming, do you?"

He genuinely laughed at that. "In about five billion years the Sun should start burning helium and expand consuming its planets. Whether humans will still be there when it happens depends largely on their decisions. Free will, remember?"

"Right. So what is it?"

He grew serious again. "If you don't want any overwhelming news perhaps we should settle on this – be careful around Marcus Pierce. He is dangerous."

"That sounds rather anticlimactic after this lead-in. Are you sure that's it?"

"Are you sure you want to know?"

"I'm sure that given that he's my commanding officer I probably _should_ know anyway."

"Even if it turns out he's actually the world's first murderer, unable to stay dead for the last couple thousand years?"

Chloe closed her eyes. Of course it _had to_ be something like that.

"Seriously? Couldn't he just be a dirty cop? Lead some crime organisation on the side?"

"He does that too, if it makes you feel better," Lucifer stated dryly before addressing her again. "Chloe, I'm trying to handle that. I promised to help him break my Dad's curse so he would be able to die and wouldn't be a danger to you. Or anyone else," he added hastily."I just thought you should know so you can be careful around him."

She opened her eyes and looked at his worried expression. It seemed he was honestly trying to do his best with a bad situation and she could hardly fault him for that.

"Promise to tell me if there is anything I can do?" she said eventually.

"I promise," he responded earnestly before smiling, as if an enormous weight was lifted from his shoulders. "Now let's get back to breakfast, shall we? It's getting cold."

Chloe couldn't help but smile at his expression. As she was finishing her omelette, it occurred to her that she had complete confidence that no matter what lay ahead her partner would have her back, and that was the only comfort she needed right now.

The End

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